Trump’s Defense Secretary Pick Is so Bad His Team Is Making New Plans

Donald Trump’s transition team has begun quietly assembling a list of alternatives to Pete Hegseth, Vanity Fair reported Wednesday.

The Fox & Friends host has been the subject of immense scrutiny since he was nominated last week to head the Department of Defense, after allegations surfaced that Hegseth had sexually assaulted a woman at a Republican event in Monterey, California, in 2017.

Hegseth’s lawyer said the claims had already been investigated and nothing had come of it, but soon after, it was reported that Hegseth had agreed to a settlement with the accuser in return for her signing a nondisclosure agreement.

Two Republicans close to Trump told Vanity Fair that they were preparing a contingency plan in case Hegseth’s nomination fell apart.

“It’s becoming a real possibility,” one of the sources told the magazine.

“People are upset about the distraction,” the second source said. “The general feeling is Pete hasn’t been honest.”

A MAGA insider insisted that although Hegseth had been vetted, the allegation hadn’t come up. Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, was briefed on the allegations the day after Hegseth’s nomination was announced. The claims were so serious that Wiles and a lawyer for Trump’s team approached Hegseth about them the following day.

Hegseth’s nomination has also garnered backlash over his misogynist and anti-Muslim statements, as well as his reported ties to extremist Christian nationalist figures and tattoos featuring slogans used by white nationalist groups.

Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace are bringing out the rhetorical big guns to knock down Representative-elect Sarah McBride.

Over the course of the week, Greene has accused McBride—the first openly transgender person to be elected to Congress—of being mentally ill and partaking in a “war on women.” Now Greene is claiming that a trans woman’s mere presence in a bathroom is tantamount to assault.

“I’m not kidding you,” Greene said Tuesday on Steve Bannon’s War Room. “It is like a physical assault for a man to come in, charging into our private places, bathrooms, locker rooms, our gyms, places that are designated specifically for women only.”

A 2018 study from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law found that bathroom-related nondiscrimination laws pose practically no risk to women and that claims to the contrary are little more than myths that are “not empirically grounded.”

Mace also elevated the assault claims, arguing Tuesday night on Fox News that “the idea of a man walking into a locker room where I’m changing, is actually—it feels like assault.”

Greene and Mace’s purported support for women’s safety abruptly ends with their fizzling fears over transgender rights, however. The pair of MAGA acolytes are vehement supporters of Donald Trump, who famously said that he could grab women “by the pussy” and is a judge-determined rapist, convicted adulterer, Jeffrey Epstein confidant, and proud abortion rights destroyer.

On Tuesday, Mace introduced a resolution that would ban trans women from using the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity in the U.S. Capitol. The attention-seeking South Carolina representative openly acknowledged that the stunt was a direct attack on McBride—again, who will be the lone transgender woman in Congress—telling reporters on Monday that it was “that and more.”

“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say. I mean, this is a biological man,” Mace said, adding that the newly elected Delaware congresswoman “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop.”

McBride had her own response to the resolution, describing it in a statement as a “blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing.”

“We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars,” McBride said. “Delawareans sent me here to make the American dream more affordable and accessible and that’s what I’m focused on.”

Senator Lindsey Graham doesn’t care what the ethics report on Matt Gaetz says; he doesn’t think alleged sexual misconduct should knock Donald Trump’s nominee out of the running for attorney general.

CNN’s Manu Raju asked Graham Tuesday for his response to the “serious allegations of sexual misconduct” against Gaetz. Before Raju had even finished speaking, Graham was already shaking his head.

“Nobody should be disqualified from a media report,” Graham replied.

The House Ethics Committee is set to vote Wednesday on whether to release the report on its yearslong ethics investigation into Gaetz over allegations of sexual misconduct, including sexual conduct with a minor. It was previously reported that two women testified that Gaetz had paid them for sex, and one testified that he’d also had sex with her underage friend, per the lawyer representing the women. Even if the report confirms this, it apparently wouldn’t be reason enough for Graham to abandon ship.

Gaetz called Graham as part of his effort to consolidate Republican support for Trump’s nominee, CNN reported. Gaetz and Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, have been on the offensive to shore up support for their respective unsavory nominations. Hegseth reportedly paid a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her as part of a nondisclosure agreement. Both Hegseth and Gaetz have denied any wrongdoing.

Last week, Graham admitted that it might not be easy for Trump’s nominees to get approved by the Senate. “Every nominee will have to acquit themselves well during the confirmation process by answering difficult questions and having their actions scrutinized,” Graham said.

Donald Trump has decided to nominate TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz to serve as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator.

Trump issued a statement Tuesday announcing the move, saying, “There may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again.”  

Oz ran for the Senate in 2022 in Pennsylvania, earning Trump’s endorsement against Democrat John Fetterman, but lost even after Fetterman suffered a stroke resulting in unfavorable media attention. Oz’s bumbling Senate campaign was full of gaffes, including the inconvenient fact that he was a resident of New Jersey and not the Keystone State.  

Prior to all of that, Oz was best known for peddling “miracle” medical cures and quack diet solutions on daytime television, which ultimately led to him being dressed down at a congressional hearing. Oz has tried to explain all of this away by claiming that he is an entertainer, not a doctor, which certainly undercuts whatever credibility Trump thinks he will bring to this new government position.  

Trump and Oz know each other at least going back to the president-elect’s first campaign, when he appeared on Oz’s TV show for a softball interview in 2016 and deflected questions about his own health while taking subtle jabs at his opponent Hillary Clinton’s health.  

After listing Oz’s résumé, which obviously made no mention of his medical transgressions, Trump’s statement Tuesday closed with, “I have known Dr. Oz for many years, and I am confident he will fight to ensure everyone in America receives the best possible Healthcare, so our Country can be Great and Healthy Again!”

With Oz and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted anti-vaxxer and medical conspiracist, both taking on health care leadership positions in Trump’s administration, the next four years may lead to extensive damage to American public health.  

JD Vance deleted his social media meltdown calling a Donald Trump ally a “mouth breathing imbecile” Tuesday, after she scolded him for not showing up to his job—and defied the president-elect in the process.

As the Senate Democrats race to approve President Joe Biden’s remaining judicial nominees, before they lose the majority at the beginning of next year, Republicans have become anxious that more Republican senators aren’t showing up to vote against the president’s picks.

Grace Chong, COO and CFO of Steve Bannon’s War Room, a far-right media company, posted on X Tuesday morning urging Vance and Senator Marco Rubio to “show up and do your one freakin job!!”

Shortly after that, Trump made a similar post on Truth Social. “The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door. Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line—No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day,” Trump wrote.

Vance couldn’t take the heat.

“Grace Chong is a mouth breathing imbecile who attacks those of us in the fight rather than make herself useful,” Vance fumed in a post on X, less than 30 minutes after Trump’s post on Truth Social. “If I had shown up to the vote in question, the nominee would have succeeded 49-46 rather than 49-45. If every Republican had showed up, Fetterman would have come in and the Democrats still would have gotten their nominee across.

“I tend to think it’s more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote 49-46 rather than 49-45,” he wrote, also casually burying the news that the Trump administration will try to kick out Christopher Wray long before his term is up.

Within an hour, both Chong and Vance had deleted their posts—but it was too late. The vice president-elect had already demonstrated that while he may understand how math works, he doesn’t have the slightest idea how to lead his party. By Vance’s own logic, it makes no difference whether any of his Republican colleagues do their jobs and show up to vote either. It’s also entirely likely that Vance had the unhappy realization that his childish temper tantrum had undermined Trump’s explicit demands.